harmonysun

Hello, I had a very small area of cancer and left the breast surgeon with the plans to do a lumpectomy. The more I thought about it, I realized I never want to go through this again if at all possible, so I called him and said I wanted to do a bilateral mast. He was great and I guess puts it to the insurance as reduction of risk. I did not do recon, and I am so happy with all the decisions I made. It is a very personal decision for everyone to make. I did prepare myself mentally beforehand, it is still a little sad to face any kind of loss of our body, but life goes on and that is all i wanted. To be healthy and go on taking care of my children (I am 45 and they are 4 and 6). If I would have had the lump I would have had to have rad for 8 weeks and also been on tamox. for 5 yrs. I am 100% satisfied with my decision. take care, brenda

Hello, Illinois ladies, I just wanted to mention in case it would help someone-tomorrow Thursday at 6-730 there is a lymphedema class in northbrook at the cancer wellness center. There will be someone there from the lymphedema clinic. I believe it is no cost, just call there to sign up! take care, Brenda

Hello Hope, I was wondering how your lymphedema shows up? You can weight lift, but have trouble with laundry? I am sorry to hear what your surgery revealed. I hope you are doing good, Thanks for adding balance to my answer. I am a bit optimistic just because I have seen friends with full ax. dis. and no problem  for many years.,just taking minor precautions. My mom had a full blown mast and total axil node removal done 30 yrs ago (the way they used to do it). At that time, there really wasn't a lot of info, there weren't support groups etc. And I saw her live her life just regular for many years, going in the suana, etc.

          Is the manicure thing really that risky? I haven't had one since my surgery 2 months ago, Does our body really react that much to little cuts on cuticles, etc? thanks, brenda

hi, don't be scared that you won't be able to do all those things! I think some of it depends too on the way the surgeon does it, i had bilat w/snb a couple months ago, I had dcis with a very small area of idc. i had a great surgeon, i ended up having almost 15 nodes removed on the cancer side because they all lit up as sentinal nodes! That is a very high number and a bit unusual, the other side he only removed 2 and no problem at all. The side that the 15 was removed on I do have a little swelling under my arm. He made the incisions so that they don't go under my arms. I was lucky,no cancer in the nodes, so he said just go back to what you do and enjoy your life. I do try to be a little careful, and at 2 months out I can't lift quite as much as before (moving furniture around the house, etc) but I take very hot showers and lift my kids and will be going for a manicure this week! I have complete range of motion and stretching which I was scared to lose. I think it helped that I took a great liquid vitamin supplement before, stayed hydrated and ate lots of eggs for protein to heal afterwards. I was very scared too but if you do it you will be fine if you decide to do the snb. And the prep for it is not a big deal. Just make sure your surgeon is experienced at the snb procedure, ask how many he has done. good luck to you, the time before the surgery is the hardest, that is what the great women on this site told me before my surgery and they were right! take care, brenda

hello, interesting topic-i had a bilat mast with 15 nodes on one side and 2 on the other. one side was proph. i decided to do this instead of a lumpectomy because i didn't want to deal with worrying about scar tissue affecting future mammagrams, radiation and it would have meant hormone therapy too, always worrying about recurrances, etc.. i am so happy with my decision, i just wanted to heal and get on with life, i have not have recon and it is fine, maybe someday.

       your question do to it proph-since my mom and i both had bc at 45, my two younger sisters are considering this. if it is done before there is a diagnoses of cancer, the chance of developing breast cancer is less than 2 %. Once you have the diagnoses, then you are dealing with node removal which has it's own set of problems such as lymphedema, seromas, etc.Also the experience of being diagnosed with cancer really can affect your mind. I am a very stable person and the roller coaster of emotions this has put me through has been crazy. and i have not even had near the experiences of many of the wonderful ladies on this site. So, my sisters are considering the bilat prop. the benefits are no  node removal, also scheduling it for when it is convenient to you (instead of dealing with cancer which doesn't care what the timing in your life is). i would say an impt consideration for someone would be if they will be having children to breastfeed. Another thing about doing it proph. would be that a person could take their time to pick their surgeon, etc, having to make so many impt choices suddenly in the middle of a cancer diagnoses is very hard. good luck to all!

hi libykity, i just had a bilat a couple weeks ago w/o recon. although it is such a personal choice and women have been very happy either way, for me i just wanted to be able to heal emotionally, physically and mentally before adding any more stress or procedures to my body. i also asked my surgeon to make a nice incision, he did 2wo very neat looking ones. i had virturally no pain after surgery (stopped painkillers a couple hours after surgery) and was pretty much back to my normal life of caring for a 3 and 6 year old in a few days. i thought i would be coming home and having my husband/sister take care of me. ha. no one has had to take care of me at all. since i am still in the process of healing, i haven't wanted to put any bras etc on yet, just tees and its okay! there are brief moments of sadness, but i don't let myself dwell on it. and because i didn't do it at the time of surgery, i will be able to pick whichever plastic surgeon i want and not just who is avail(if i were to decide to do recon).It was so many decisions to make I just was very glad to not have to think about that too prior to surgery. personally, i can't see putting my body through more surgery that isn't for my life. maybe someday i will want to, and i will have that option, but for right now i am very happy with my decision.  although the other day i called my sister and told her i awoke with the thought that it might be a bit strange if i went skinny dipping. although it has been years since i've done that(i'm 45). she laughed and said there would be other reasons than that she  wouldn't be doing that! so it's okay. other people i've known had said they were so happy with their recon. so take your time, and make the best decision for you! brenda

hi jule, i understand about being tired, it is all so overwhelming, do what you can to get the rest you need. I set a deadline to myself to go to bed and just left whatever was left. as mothers, we can always find more that needs to be done and sometimes we just need to let it go and take care of ourselves. did you have chemo and node biopsy first? and now they are looking at the other breast too?

        i was diagnosed w/idc, they said a small area, still waiting on the final pathology. I have family history, my mom had bc at my same age 45. They were going to do a lumpetomy w/rads and had said to do a mri. my mind went wild, thinking they are going to find all this other stuff. well i suddenly realized, i wanted a bilateral mast. i didn't want to go through more biopsys and waiting and watching, etc. Then when i did do a mri, they found another area in the other breast.  So one week ago today I had the surgery and I am so happy that I am functioning pretty normally. I am not having recon, and Iam totally fine with that. It is sad, my breasts had filled out nice after nursing and were looking good! But most of all, I feel I need to be here for as long as I can to get my girls to be able to handle life and whatever comes their way. they need me. i think unless it is in the chest wall, i will not have rads. chemo is unsure still. in fact waiting for the docs call right now.

        i am so very sad about your sister. is it because she was so young, it took a long time to diagnose?my heart hurts very much for that.

      In my new experiences of this all, i would say to try and be educated about your choices, it is such a hard time, i didn't even want to think about it. But the more i learned, i felt i was able to decide what was right for me. and i am very very happy with my decision. some things we can control, some we can't.

                           stay in touch, you will get through this there are amazing gals on this board who will help. There is one smart lady who told me not to get so wrapped up in all this reading, and to go play with my kids. great advice. you do need to get a plan of action, have a lot of trust in your doctors. the waiting and deciding part is the hardest!               take care, brenda

thanks sheila, great you are doing good!! i will try to relax, just a bit jumpy today everytime the phone rings!          brenda

hi sheila, how are you feeling now after a year? has life gotten back to "normal"? that would be exhausting to be dealing with a funeral after the surgery. I am not feeling very tired, yesterday i was on the go most of the day and did fine. Until 3 am when a storm woke me up and i went to the bathroom and looked at my drains and one was filled with air, not compressed like it should be to have the suction/vacumn effect. so there i was calling the doctor's office at 3 am leaving a message that i was coming in the next day, and there needed to be someone to take a look at things. Even though I have been pretty good spirited about everything, i kind of got aggravated and told them so that i felt i was just kind of thrown out there after the operation, without much guidance and without anyone calling to see how i was, any questions or wanting to take a look at everything. So I did just get back from the docs and the nurse had to pull out my drain because it was out a bit already. So now my thoughts are, really, that would seem to be the simplest part of the surgery, putting in a few stiches to hold this drain in. I will be asking who did it, because they sure didn't do a good job of it. So now I have to watch that I don't get a seroma building up, for what, because someone didn't put it in good enough? I am a little crabby today, waiting for the final pathology report. deep breath. well, enough ranting, i hope you are feeling great!!!! brenda